Mr. John Clerk, an eminent Scotch counsel, was arguing at the bar of the House of Lords in a Scotch appeal, and turning his periods in the broadest Scotch, and after clinching a point, added, "That's the whole thing in plain English, ma lorrdds." Upon which Lord Eldon replied: "You mean in plain Scotch, Mr. Clerk." The advocate readily retorted, "Nae maitter! in plain common sense, ma lords, and that's the same in a' languages, we ken weel eneuch." (Text.)—Croake James, "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."
(486)
COMMON THINGS
Common things have their use which often surpasses the intrinsic value of precious, costly things.
A rich nobleman was once showing a
friend a great collection of precious stones
whose value was almost beyond counting.
There were diamonds and pearls and rubies,
and gems from almost every country, and
had been gathered by their possessor at the
greatest labor and expense. "And yet," he
remarked, "they yield me no income." His
friend replied that he had two stones which
had only cost him five pounds each, but
which yielded him a very considerable annual
income, and he led him down to the mill
and pointed to two toiling gray millstones.
(487)
Communication, Easy—See Social Progress.
COMMUNICATION IN FORMER DAYS
The progress of the world can be inferred from facts like the following:
In 1798 the entire business of the Post-office
Department was conducted by the
Postmaster-General, one assistant, and one
clerk. In 1833 it required forty-eight hours
to convey news from Washington to Philadelphia.
In 1834 New York Saturday papers
were not received in Washington until the
following Tuesday afternoon. In 1835 the
mails were carried between Philadelphia and
Pittsburg daily in four-horse coaches, two
lines daily, one to go through in a little more
than two days, the other in three and a half
days. In 1833 a contractor named Reeside
carried the mail between Philadelphia and
New York, ninety miles, in six hours,
making fifteen miles an hour. The railroad,
as a factor in the mail service, did not have
a beginning before 1835. August 25 of this
year the formal opening of the road between
Washington and Baltimore took place. Amos
Kendall, then Postmaster-General, at first
objected to having the mails carried by rail
over this road, since it would, as he feared,
disarrange connections with existing lines of
stages. In October, 1834, a writer in the
Boston Atlas says: "We left Philadelphia
on the morning of the sixth in a railroad car,
and reached Columbia, on the Susquehanna,
at dusk—a distance of eighty-two miles."—John M. Bishop, Magazine of American History.
(488)
Communication of Disease—See Contamination.
COMMUNICATION, PRIMITIVE
Many explorers have commented on the
speed with which news travels among savage
tribes, says Amateur Work. A curious observation
as to a possible solution of the
problem of their methods has been made by
the Rev. A. Rideout, who, as a missionary
among the Basutos, has noticed their method
of sending messages from village to village
by means of a signal-drum or gourd.
This gourd, covered with the dried and
stretched skin of a kid, gives out a sound
which travels and can be heard at distances
from five to eight miles. The transmission
and reception of messages on these drums
is entrusted to special corps of signalers,
some one of whom is always on duty, and
who beat on the message in what is practically
a Morse alphabet. On hearing the
message, says Mr. Rideout, the signaler can
always tell whether it is for his chief or for
some distant village, and delivers it verbally
or sends it on accordingly, and it is thus
carried on with surprizing rapidity from
one village to another, till it reaches its destination.
All that took place in the Boer
War, victories and reverses in the Transvaal
and Orange Free State, were known to us
by gourd-line message hours before the news
ever reached us by field telegraph. The natives
guarded the secret of their code carefully.
To my knowledge, messages have
been sent a thousand miles by means of it.
This is probably one of the earliest forms of
wireless telegraphy.
(489)
COMMUNICATION, PSYCHICAL
Having discovered that we are immersed
in the ether, and that it responds instantly,
and to untold distances to electric vibrations,
the daring inventor said, if I can set the
